One-legged woman cleared of slaying can sue Kentucky trooper

A woman who was exonerated for a homicide after spending more than six years behind bars can sue the Kentucky State Police detective she says framed her.

The U.S Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Monday reinstated a lawsuit alleging malicious prosecution filed by Susan Jean King against Lt. Todd Harwood.

King alleges that Harwood, then a sergeant, lied before a grand jury that indicted her on a murder charge in the death of Kyle Breeden by falsely testifying that it was impossible to determine if the bullets found in King’s floor and the ones found in Breeden’s skull were a match. In fact, Judge Danny Boggs of Louisville wrote for a three-judge appellate panel, a state police forensic examiner had told Harwood the bullets didn’t match.

Boggs also noted that Harwood omitted from his testimony that King had only one leg, which would have undercut his claim that she dragged Breeden from her home and threw him off a bridge.

"We’re very pleased with the decision," Thomas Clay, a lawyer for King, said. "It returns Susan Jean King’s case to court, where hopefully a jury will agree with us that the actions by Kentucky State Police were truly outrageous.”

UPDATE: She says a KSP officer framed her for murder. Watch her story on the Discovery Channel

Harwood referred questions to KSP Lt. Michael Webb, who said he could not comment Monday.

The appeals court reversed U.S. District Judge Greg Stivers, who threw out King’s suit against Harwood and other defendants on the grounds that police had probable cause for her arrest and that the suit was filed too late.

The panel did affirm the dismissal of counts that named the state police and three of Harwood’s supervisors.

The Courier-Journal previously reported that after Breeden’s body was found in 1998 in the Kentucky River, his murder went unsolved for eight years, despite an investigation by six KSP detectives.

But when Harwood was assigned it as a cold case in 2006, it took him only 21 days to say he had solved it and that King was the culprit.

Facing 20 years to life if she went to trial and was found guilty, King, while maintaining her innocence, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree manslaughter and accepted a 10-year sentence.

The Kentucky Innocence Project already had been working on the case for several years when on May 4, 2012, a serial murderer named Richard Jarrell confessed to a Louisville Metro Police detective that he had in fact killed Breeden.

After Harwood initially declined to interview Jarrell, then allegedly intimidated him into recanting his confession, Louisville Detective Barron Morgan reported the confession to the Innocence Project after getting permission from a supervisor.

The newspaper reported that then-state Police Commissioner Rodney Brewer complained to Louisville police Chief Steve Conrad, a longtime friend, that Morgan was meddling in a state police case, and Conrad subsequently transferred him to a graveyard shift as a patrol officer.

Conrad claimed the move was part of a broad reorganization, but Morgan said he was demoted as punishment, and he won $450,000 from the city to settle his whistleblower lawsuit.

The Kentucky Court of Appeals vacated King’s conviction after she had been released from prison on a 10-year sentence, calling it an “egregious violation” of justice, and prosecutors in Spencer County decided not to retry her.

Besides the homicide charge, Harwood also got King indicted for tampering with physical evidence, alleging in part that she had cleaned the floor of her kitchen, which he claimed was the crime scene.

But Boggs noted for the court that the KSP lab found no traces of cleaning solvent on the floor.

Harwood also alleged King had destroyed evidence by later tearing out the floor, when he knew she had it replaced because of flood damage, the Courier-Journal reported.

Harwood, who received a KSP “Commissioner’s Commendation” in 2009 for his “outstanding achievement in solving Breeden’s murder,” is still on the force. He is now a lieutenant and paid $70,346 a year.

Brewer retired last year.

Reporter Andrew Wolfson can be reached at 502-582-7189 or awolfson@courier-journal.com.

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